Population Estimates:
An estimated 27,000 Jewish persons live in 12,500 Jewish households in the Greater Cincinnati area in 2008. A total of 33,000 people reside in these households, including 6,000 non-Jewish persons (18% of all people in these Jewish households).

Key Findings:

The 2008 estimate of 12,500 Jewish households represents 1.74% of households in the geographic area studied, and 1.89% of the total population. Recent University of Cincinnati polls have indicated that between 1.5% and 1.7% of Hamilton county (largest area of Jewish residence) respondents were Jewish.

54% of survey respondents were born in Ohio, mostly in the Cincinnati area. Among current residents, 16% (over 2,000 respondents) had moved away from the area at some time, but then returned.

The community has also attracted significantly more newcomers than Jewish leaders had assumed; 12% of 2008 survey respondents have moved to the community in the past ten years (excluding those born in the area, who moved away and returned). Newcomers are disproportionately younger adults.

The age structure is "balanced." Children under age 18 constitute 20% of all people living in Jewish households, while seniors 65 and older are 19% of the total. Comparisons to other mid-size Midwestern Jewish communities show the Cincinnati age structure is similar to the other cities;

However, decile analysis for all household members showed a significant gap in the age 30-39 decile.

Approximately one-in-five Jewish households is either just managing financially or cannot make ends meet; younger adults without children are most likely to be "just managing" (even after eliminating full-time students);

The intermarriage rate is 34%, similar to patterns found in other mid-size Midwestern cities. Recently married Jewish households (since 2000) have a 58% intermarriage rates.

60% of children in intermarried households are currently being raised as Jewish-only, while another 7% are being raised "Jewish-and-something-else." In contrast, 98% of all children raised by two-born Jewish inmarried parents are being raised as Jewish-only;

95% of all children being raised as Jewish or the few Jewish-and-else have had some Jewish education, including 87% of Jewish-raised children with intermarried parents.

60% of Jewish households report synagogue/temple membership, higher than in any comparably-sized Midwestern community, and high on a national basis;

38% of all intermarried Jewish households report synagogue membership, higher than in any other Jewish community in the United States;

47% of respondents identify as Reform Jews in 2008 (Cincinnati is the historic home of the Reform movement in the United States, and Hebrew Union College's campus in Cincinnati has a major impact on the community); 27% identify as Conservative, 5% as Orthodox, 5% as Humanist, 6% as non-denominational, and 10% have been classified as as secular-no religion (in addition to the Humanist denomination members);

Sample:
Interviews completed in Hamilton County, Ohio: the largest area of Jewish residence, as well as in Butler, Clermont and Warren Counties in Ohio, and the Northern Kentucky counties of Campbell and Kenton.

Six geographic areas were identified for geograp

Sample Size:
912 completed interviews with Jewish households.

Sample Notes:
The sampling design utilized a stratified random sample of interviews from two complementary sampling frames: (1) a Jewish community list of known Jewish households, and (2) a residual RDD sample, consisting of all possible RDD (random digit dialed) phone numbers in the Cincinnati area, after the phone numbers on the Jewish community list had been removed ("de-duplicated").

Reflecting a highly-connected Jewish community, interviews from the Jewish community lists represent 61% of the weighted Jewish households in the data file; the residual RDD frames accounted for 39% of weighted household interviews, including 4% only from (Jewish surname households - DJNs - published in telephone directories, but not in the community lists).

The number of actual interviews by frame was 684 List and 228 residual RDD; of the RDD interviews, 58 were with DJNs, 80 with published households without DJN names, and 90 unpublished/unlisted RDD.

Study Notes:
NOTE: Prior to the 2008 study, some Jewish communal leaders had been concerned that the Jewish population had declined over the preceding two decades, since the last study in 1987.

The previous Jewish community study in 1987 (only reports are available at the Data Bank for 1987) had estimated approximately 10,500 Jewish households and a total of 25,000 people (including non-Jews) in Cincinnati.

1987 Study, however, only interviewed respondents from Jewish community lists and/or those with Distinctive Jewish surnames in telephone directories; no interviews were conducted from an RDD base, although the final estimate was adjusted based on the results of a University of Cincinnati poll which interviewed only a few Jewish households.

No data on the number of Jewish persons was published. Very few comparisons to the 1987 Study have been made in the 2008 Report because of the lack of an RDD-component in 1987.

The 2008 Ukeles Cincinnati Study data concluded that it is "highly likely" that the Jewish population has remained stable since 1987.

The 2008 data file has weighted to project to the number of Jewish households.

Sampling design, population estimates, and initial weighting by Dale Kulp, CEO and Founder, GENESYS Sampling Systems and David Dutwin, Vice-President, Social Science Research Group, ICR.

2008 Data have been adjusted by UAI to reflect the percentage of cell-phone-only-where-they-live younger households in the community, especially "single" Jewish adults living in Cincinnati.

Adjustments were based on an Internet survey of young adults, where the focus was on estimating the percentage of Jewish adults who were only accessible on a cell phone at home; adjustments varied by marital status, and age of respondent.

Project budget did not allow for RDD cell phone calls.

In the Internet survey, cell-phone-only responses were given by 59% of "single" respondents ages 18-29, 43% of married/living together respondents ages 18-29, 19% of singles 30-39, and 1% of 30-39 year old marrieds/living together.

After confirming that Internet responses of cell-phone-only and landline-accessible younger respondents were similar, the landline interviews of "single" respondents 18-29 (as an example of the weighting adjustments) were increased by a factor of 2.44 since the landline survey could reach only 41% of these households (59% are cell-only).

Thus, the data file has been designed to reflect all Jewish households in the Cincinnati area, both landline accessible and cell-phone-only accessible.

Weights include adjustments for the number of landlines in interviewed Jewish and non-Jewish households, sampling frame adjustments for disproportionate sampling, and cell-phone-only accessibility.

Data file has projected Jewish population numbers built into the weights.

Number of Jewish households: "HHCellWt" N=12,472 precise; number of Jewish persons in Jewish households ("JewWtCell" N=27,024), and total number of people in households ("PopWtCell" N=33,049).